Osborne met with university chancellor Harvey Perlman and agreed to serve until the chancellor hires a permanent athletic director. Upon hearing that Osborne's latest stay in Lincoln will be short-lived and he will be "retiring" again in the near future, the USA TODAY Coaches Poll immediately re-issued their Top 25 rankings for the week. In the revised rankings, 4-3 Nebraska, coming off consecutive blowout losses, was the new #1 team in America as the coaches quickly moved to award Osborne yet another national title as a going away present.

In 1997, Osborne announced at the end of the regular season he was stepping down as Nebraska's coach following his team's bowl game. When his Huskers won that game, they leapfrogged top-ranked Michigan in the Coaches Poll - even though Michigan won the Rose Bowl - to claim a share of the national title. Many credit this switcheroo - the first and only time a top-ranked team had dropped in the polls after winning its bowl game - as a retirement gift for the popular Osborne.

"We talked about giving him a watch in '97," said one voting coach who didn't want his real named used and thus who we'll refer to as "Bill Bulmer." "But that seemed kinda cheap. Kinda...ACC. So we decided on the national title. I suggested we do it again this year, while he's AD, even though, let's be honest, Nebraska sucks ass."

Bulmer said the coaches will continue to put out their poll the rest of season for appearance's sake but that it was all a sham as Nebraska - and Osborne - already have this one in the bag.

The last thing NU needs is to bring their legend back. With this move, Osborne is only risking his legacy and NU is in danger of becoming Florida State (Bowden staying too long), Penn State (JoePa staying way too long), or Michigan (if Debord/Carr continue to do less with more)

Don't forget 1994, when voters gave Osborne the National Title because he had never won one yet and jumped Nebraska over Penn State even though Penn State never lost. Nebraska beat a wildly overrated Colorado team, which was ranked so high because they won a miracle game they had no business winning. Who'd they beat again? Oh, yeah, Michigan. Sheesh.

At least you guys SHARED the title in 1997. Penn State got screwed out of the entire thing, even though they went 12-0 and won the Rose Bowl.

According to some bobbleheads, the BCS is a bright side. To this bobblehead, the BCS is a sham and should be destroyed and dumped down a black hole.

We should either implement a play off or go back to the old ways with the old traditions (Rose Bowl). So what if we don't have a clear champion because it doesn't seem that the BCS determines a champion as it is.

it might be a mess, but in the 10 seasons since BCS inception, there's been only 2 titles that are up for debate (the LSU/USC fiasco and Auburn being left out of the title game). If you ask me that's a bright side. It's still a crap-shoot in many ways, but, as much as i love cfb tradition, it's better than just ap/coaches rankings.

The thing that ticks me off about the USC debacle is that it was the thing that the BCS was supposed to correct. The split championship in 1997 made the Big-10 and Pac-10 finally say, "Fine, we'll join your stupid bowl coalition". Since the inception of the BCS, they've been lucky that certain teams have had timely losses and they've managed to dodge the bullet. USC was the bullet not dodged.

Since there is so much money floating around, it's not likely that they will ditch the bowls so I don't think we'll ever see a playoff. As such, I'd still rather ditch the BCS. The old system was convoluted but at least we accepted that and could move on. The BCS is still a pig. You can put makeup on a pig, but it's still a pig.

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